Organizing a Student Film Festival

[Learning 2.008 Conference]

The organizing committee of the Shanghai Student Film Festival will discuss strategies and benefits of organizing film festivals in your cities, and creating festival networks to grant wider exposure to your students' films.

Presenter: David Gran
Room: MS403

[atomikey]

S2F2 - Last year was awesome!

[David Larson]

Here's the S2F2 site:

http://www.shanghaifilmfest.org

[Mikey McKillip]

Shanghai Student Film Festival CONTACT
[e-mail]

[Jonathan Chambers]

If you're with a school in Shanghai (or nearby) and you'd like to become part of the festival, then please get in touch with the group.

Other organizations and film festivals that S2F2 can plug into:
HKIS has a virtual film festival online
Edinburgh Film Festival "Fresh" has created a network of student film festivals

"Is cinema studies the new MBA?" - David will post link to article.

AUTHENTIC AUDIENCE: Creating content not just for you, or for a grade, but students are able to get their message out to a larger group of people. When students create something, they want to show their work to their peers, and then to a wider audience. More opportunities for feedback, therefore making it a more authentic opportunity/experience.

Finding support: organizers, students, teachers, administration, vendors. Finding a venue, constracts and legal issues, submissions and deadlines, categories and divisions, awards and recognition, create an online presence.

Copyright issues: S2F2 may set up resources and links to guide students towards royalty-free music. Any material that's added to films needs to be sourced.

[Lee-Anne Patterson]

HKIS have an online student film festivals
Edinburgh film festival has a list of student film festivals
Is Cinema Studies the new MBA - google article
HOW??
Need to:
Find support - organisers, students, teachers, administrators, vendors
Find a Venue -
Contracts and legal issues,
Submissions and deadlines,
Categories and divisions,
Awards and recognition (for all participants),
Branding for continuity!!
Create an online presence - website and YouTube Channel (shanghaifilmfestival) page/hit count
People's choice award at the final award ceremony - may not be one of the finalists.
Film time limit - 5 minutes
could start off with 24 hour film festival
Can have a theme - French film festival has "the other" as a theme this year??

[Tim]

It is wonderful that the first film festival came out of a discussion from last year's conference. 150 submissions the first year -- amazing! 300 people at the event. Great job!

It is important to have teachers in all subjects use film and movies with the students. Last year at KIS we used movies quite a bit in the social studies and English departments. Students made some great products.

Building a coalition of student film festivals in the region and in the world. Edinburgh has started making a global festival. Students enter from all over the world. In Seoul we would probably start with our school, the SFS and SIS, next all of the Korean schools and finally regional/global. It will be easier to get the faculty behind it with baby steps.

Many business schools are searching for students who are good with visual images... Article "Is Film Studies the new MBA?" is worth a read. Students get the idea/concept of a real audience beyond the classroom and even beyond the school.

How to:
1. Find Support -- organizers, students, teachers, administrators, vendors
2. Find a venue
3. Contracts and legal issues -- copyright issues with music -- encourage students to use their own music and music without license problems... Links and resources for students.
4. Submissions and Deadlines -- application forms
5. Categories and Divisions -- grade level, genre, etc.
6. Awards and Recognition -- all students feel recognized -- everybody got shirts, other goodies; only a few were included in the big show, but all the videos were shown on different monitors and there was a people's choice award for those not officially in the festival competition
7. Create and Online Presence -- webpage, make a buzz about the festival, link to Youtube channel for the festival -- also a 24 hour film festival
8. Branding -- have a logo

Story Telling Basics
Once upon a time...
And then...
And then...
Until one day...
After that everything was...

[David Larson]

I'm forwarding this from HKIS:


Hello Supporter and Encourager of Young Filmmakers!

If that's you, please read on - - -

There's a great contest going on right now!

If you know student filmmakers between 13 and 21 encourage them to register and win up to US$1000 plus have the film shown on Channel [V] TV!

All they have to do is tell a story in one minute - without dialog. It can include music - but the idea is to copy the silent film era style - like a Charlie Chaplin movie. Music was played in the background and sometimes there were Q cards to let you know what was being said but mostly the story was told through action - exaggerated action!

They need to get started now and can work alone or with a team. Register is online at: http://www.icubed.us/node/gallery
Details and a poster are available at the same site.

Students can choose one of the following topics:
1) one minute of kindness
2) yak cheese
3) show something you care about

Registration is already open. Deadline for registration is Oct. 1.

Completion date for the film is Oct. 15

Award ceremony on November 1, 2008 in Hong Kong.

The contest is sponsored by HKIS Film Club and iCubed.us.

See your students' films on TV and at the Award ceremony!

Richard Friedericks
Film Club Advisor
Hong Kong International School

[dsgran]

Here is the New York Times article I mentioned during the presentation: Is Cinema Studies the New MBA by Elizabeth Van Ness.

Thanks to all for attending and participating. Please feel free to contact us to join our collaboration on S2F2, or get advice on starting your own film festival

Film Festival Email:
[e-mail]

My email:
[e-mail]